Easy zig-zag crochet cowl - with instructions

Hi everyone. I'm back from our (always too short) vacation and my head is spinning with all the new projects I want to tackle. I'm sure that as as soon as I'm back at work, time will be so scarce again that half of them will stay on the shelves indefinitely, but at least the good news is that while on vacation I managed to finish my new cowl.

DIY felt party favor baskets tutorial

We are still off work and enjoying the final days of our vacation. Next week the kids go back to school and a new year begins for all of us. 

On September 2nd, however, we will be celebrating my daughter's 5th birthday and I just wanted to show you the party favor baskets I made for her. And leave you with a small tutorial, in case you want to do something similar. 

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday 26/August

Yep, still gone! Back next week!

Custom baby gift & gift package

When I need to find a gift for a new baby and I have no idea of what the parents want or need, I often resort to making a custom baby bib. Because you can't have too many bibs and a personalized one is always cute.

The easiest way to do this is, of course, to buy one of those pre-made bibs with a bit of aida fabric on the front, thus ready to embroider.

This one is from DMC and I cross stitched the name of the baby to be in bold, girly colors (originally I took additional pictures, but then somehow managed to erase them before actually writing this post). 

The cross stitch chart is also from DMC and I found it on Pinterest. You can download it here. 

To complement the baby bib I decided to make a cute gift package too. I used my cereal box to gift package tutorial to create a one of a kind gift package, ideal for a baby girl.  

I started with a box of baby cereal and covered it in pink self adhesive paper.

Then I glued some glittery hearts and added a matching ribbon. 

Perfect! One pretty custom made inexpensive baby gift that any expectant mother will love!

Enjoy and have a great week!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday 19/August

We are on vacation this week, so no photos this Wordless Wednesday. Hopefully I'll bring back lots of pictures to post here!

Enjoy the rest of your week,

Back to school: custom printable name tags

Every year I make my kids new name tags to put on all those schools supplies we have to buy for the new school year. 

Of course there are a million tags for sale everywhere, but I still like to make my own and print them with their names already on. 

This year my son wanted cars (what a surprise...) and my daughter wanted princesses (yeah, big wow there too...). 

So I made two different princess name tags: 

 

And two different cars name tags: 

I'm sharing the original Powerpoint files so that you can insert your child's name in the tags before printing. You can download the girl name tags here and the boy name tags here. 

Each file contains six name tags of each. Just add the desired name and print them on self adhesive paper. Cut to size and you have a set of cute name tags for the new school year!

Oh, and in case you want to check the tags I made last year, the boy name tags are here and the girly version was shared in this post. 

Have fun and a new happy school year!

On vacation

By this time tomorrow hopefully I will be looking at this view...

We are going on vacation for a few days. I have some posts scheduled but should only be back to active blogging by the first week of September.

In the meantime, if anything comes up you can send me an e-mail to keepingitrreal@gmail.com and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

See you soon,

A "new" skirt: the easiest upcycle ever!

I have seriously been trying to clean out my unfinished projects pile before we go on vacation for a few days and this was a long overdue upcycle. Actually, I'm not even sure you can call it an upcycle. It's just an effort to have my daughter wear one of her favorite skirts (and mine too) for a while longer.

No clutter in 2015: week 32 update

This week has not been very favorable in terms of decluttering. We have been feverishly trying to finish painting the living room walls, but it took us three coats of paint to get the color just right and we are now going through the finishing touches.

I hope I can move all the furniture back in place during next weekend and hang the curtains again. And then I'll be able to go back to decluttering in full force. 

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday 12/August

2015 has been a year of amazing sunsets, and here are a few more examples, all within the past week:

How to hem pants like a pro in 20 minutes

Hello Kitty Party Pack - free printables

Hi everyone! It's Friday and I'm (almost) in weekend mode. Hopefully we'll finish painting the living room this weekend and then I can focus on my craft projects again.

In the meantime, I finally finished putting together the Hello Kitty party pack printables I made last spring for the birthday party of a friend's daughter who turned seven in May. I made them in two different computers over the course of several weeks, not to mention that the original ones were in Portuguese and I had to translate them to share here. So it took me while to get them all together in the same file and create an appropriate post. Ok, and let's be honest - because I had no real pressure anymore, I kept postponing working on them...

But finally, here they are. The original idea came to me via a paper tag that was hanging on a long sleeved t-shirt I bought for my daughter several months ago. That, coupled with the fact that the birthday girl in question loves Hello Kitty (who doesn't?), prompted me to create these printables. 

No clutter in 2015: when the kids get on board

Over the past 6 months of trying to declutter our house, I have learned several important lessons. 

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday 5/August

Welcome to August!

DIY Summer Photo Frame

Originally I had intended to finish this project in time to participate in the July Craft Challenge over at 2 Crochet Hooks, but, as usual, life got in the way and I never managed to complete it in time. 

This weekend, in between painting the living room and taking the kids to the beach for a while, I put on my list of chores to finish a series of projects that have been pending for a while, and this one was one of them.